Facebook profits hit record high (despite year of scandals)

Ali Mogharabi:Facebook's fourth-quarter results easily beat expectations as the daily average user count grew sequentially in the largest ad spending markets, US and Europe, even though the firm remains in the midst of addressing data security and privacy issues. The business had revenue of $16.91 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.40 billion.

The number of employees as of December 31 was 35,587, an increase of 42 per cent year-over-year. As a group, analysts expect that Facebook will post 7.4 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Monthly active users were also up 9 percent and by 49 million from Q3, to 2.32 billion at year-end.

Facebook's main app has more than 2.3 billion users.

Proof positive that Mark Zuckerberg has built something that millions and millions of people are still using every day.

Although the user growth did not specifically mention of Singapore among other Southeast Asian countries, the number could not be taken for granted. Piper Jaffray Companies also issued estimates for Facebook's Q3 2019 earnings at $1.71 EPS, Q2 2020 earnings at $2.07 EPS, Q3 2020 earnings at $2.04 EPS and Q4 2020 earnings at $2.69 EPS. Shares of Google parent Alphabet Inc rose 1.4 percent in extended trading on Wednesday.

"Between the intellectual tech press and the Washington elite, there's a huge disconnect between the news and what the rest of the world is doing", said Richard Greenfield, an analyst at BTIG LLC in NY. During the fourth quarter, the public learned more about how it let Russian Federation manipulate users in campaigns that continued through the 2018 United States midterm elections. "Advertisers are clearly still very reliant on Facebook". Ruggie Capital Group now owns 446 shares of the social networking company's stock valued at $58,000 after purchasing an additional 156 shares in the last quarter.

United States measles outbreak could be preventedA vast majority of those who came down with measles - 41 - were not vaccinated against the disease, Clark County officials said. Right now there is an outbreak of measles in Washington, and the governor has declared a public health emergency .

Facebook today announced that there are a combined 2.5 billion people on their 3 messaging platforms, and on the earnings call suggested this would enough to create an iMessage-type layer which could replace SMS messages completely. Instead, it will disclose total users for a "family of services" that includes Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram.

As it approaches its 15th anniversary, Facebook has been able to keep revenue momentum thanks to its unique advertising model that allows marketers to reach specific segments of users.

Facebook is second only to colossus Google in worldwide digital ad revenue and is the owner of some of the most widely used smartphone apps.

The separation between Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram is about to get even blurrier.

As Facebook shifts its focus away from clickbait to emphasize "meaningful" interactions and fights a seemingly never-ending cycle of bad press, it's less clear what engagement with the main Facebook app looks like.

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